Intensive care medicine -: Update 2005

xThis manuscript gives a review about important studies addressing problems in intensive care medicine that have been published in journals focussing on critical care medicine and surgery in 2005. Only clinical studies are included in this review, mostly metaanalyses, randomized controlled trials and a few important or interesting observational studies. in addition to describing major results a critical appraisal of each study is undertaken, which, however, is neither comprehensive nor complete. It is merely intended to address some important aspects for the reader who should be stimulated to go deeper into one or the other topic or study. The publication of the new CPR-guidelines of the American Heart Association and the European Resuscitation Council as well as the newly developed SAPS fit score to predict intensive care unit outcome are among the outstanding topics. Several randomized trials and metaanalyses deal with aspects of drug therapy of septic patients. Some important and relevant findings have been reported with respect to the efficiency of the open-lung concept, non-invasive ventilation, the use of heat and moisture exchanger filters compared to active humidifiers and of closed systems for endotracheal suctioning. The role of immunonutrition in adults and children as well as of early enteral nutrition can be defined more clearly. Whether corticosteroids should be used in the treatment of severe traumatic brain injury can be definitely answered now. There are some new insights reported into the management of patients infected or contaminated with MRSA in the intensive care unit. Last but not least an impressive study shows that not only the newest therapeutic developments but the stringent use of the already known treatment options may result in dramatic improvements of patient outcome.